20 Local Schools Make Illinois Honor Roll

STATELINE (WIFR) -- More than 600 schools in Illinois made the state honor roll last year and nearly two dozen of those schools are here in the Stateline. Twenty local school districts made the honor roll last year, under three different categories. There are Illinois Spotlight Schools which are high-poverty schools that are closing the achievement gap and two local schools made that list. The schools that received academic improvement awards have shown major gains over the last few years. East High school is one of those schools.

In 2008, just 18 percent of students who took the Prairie State Achievement Exam at East, met or exceeded expectations. Last year, 40% of students met or exceeded.

"It's outstanding. The student achievement consistently growing every year is fantastic and that's accredited to the students and we challenge every junior class to do better than the one before them and in about a week and a half we're going to start getting into those junior classes and challenging them,” said East High Principal, Patrick Enright.

Enright attributes the test score increase to more kids taking higher level classes earlier. He also says they started Prairie Exam prep courses three years ago. There is a third category, academic excellence awards. Those are schools that sustained high performance for at least three years. 15 area schools made this list.

Kishwaukee elementary, which made the academic excellence list is in the Belvidere School District. It’s one of the schools that could close as administrators try to eliminate a budget deficit, however we’ll have to wait until the board makes an official recommendation next month.

Below is the list of all the schools in our area that were recognized on the Honor Roll list:

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